The present disclosure relates generally to pigment-based inks.
Electronic inks are commonly used in electronic displays. Such electronic inks often include charged colorant particles that, in response to an applied electric field, rearrange within a viewing area of the display to produce desired images. This effect is known as electrophoresis, or more broadly electrokinetics.
Electronic inks are useful as a medium to low power reflective types of displays. Conventional electrophoretic displays feature either black and white states (by exchanging white and black charged colorant particles at the top of the display cell) or white and colored states (by moving white colorant particles in a dyed fluid up and down electrophoretically). These conventional electrophoretic displays cannot provide a clear state and cannot be easily extended to provide full-color displays with bright colors. There remain, however, technical challenges in identifying ink components that can stably operate in the electrophoretic/electrokinetic regime. Further, electronic paper utilizing electromigration of particles often exhibits relatively short lifetimes. Degradation may be observed in the form of decreased contrast with a very low number of cycling of the light/dark state or decreased contrast with short time being held at the light state.